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mr nice feeds

Sunday, October 02, 2005

beaches, babies and bemoaning

a kind, eagle-eyed reader pointed out that zipcar gives all of its cars wacky names, meaning that it was not toyota's fault the car was called "mort." apparently it was not some attempt at a snazzy foreign-sounding name given by the manufacturer (like "fiesta" or "aztec" or "pinto"), but rather an unsnazzy old-jewish-man nickname given by zipcar itself. so, mort is not french for "fiery death by molten car," but rather yiddish for "oy! slow down already. whaddaya want? to run me off the road?" subtle difference, but it's there.

anyway, the nice guys went to the jersey shore yesterday. beach, beer, briny air -- it was really a delightful afternoon. it was our child's first time on the coast and i could tell that, like her papa, she loves herself some beach. like me, she is a wild wayfaring woman, except, um, i am, most days, not a woman.

was that awkward for you too? so, moving on, friends were staying at their parents' beach house. they have an 18-month-old daughter. other friends came by with a nine-month-old kid. so do the math: six parents, three kids under two. bedlam, i tell you; it was bedlam!

first of all, whose fucking idea was it to let kids walk? bad idea. this is a trend i would like to see reversed. secondly -- the reaching! the grabbing! the knocking over! the running full-speed into traffic despite 13 pleas from your parents to come back and eat a brownie or something, anything, to just stop moving for one blissful, motionless millisecond, please. jiminy cricket, is it too late to send our baby back before she reaches any more "milestones"? third, and this one's for the nine-month-old: sand is not for eating, ok? beaches are fun, sure; sand is great for digging and sculpting and general revelry, yes. but eating? no. neither are: sunglasses, hair or smaller babies.

i asked our friend with the 18-month old if it's gotten harder. she said "yes, but." and that was it. the sentence ended. THERE WAS NO BUT.

It gets harder because there's so much more running around to do and they're so much more demanding because they can actually walk and talk and they want to do things and they want to do them NOW, damnit. But it also gets easier in the sense that they become much more independent, more self reliant, and you don't have that constant fear that makes you hold a mirror under their nose to check if they're still breathing.